Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/442

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438
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY
Sotol on the Hacienda de Santa Inez. Photo by F. E. Lloyd.

the others cold; some feed a small rivulet, across which one might step with ease, that passes through a series of reservoirs and is used in irrigating the gardens, some supply the baths, and others the troughs where the cattle come to drink.

But this wealth of water, for wealth it is in such a country, is not general. One would go far to find so splendid a supply as feeds the industries of this place. Here and there wells are sunk in the valleys and water is found at a depth of forty feet more or less, but often drilling goes much deeper without finding any.

The sites of these springs are here, as everywhere else in deserts, oases of fertility, visible sometimes a day's journey across the broad valleys, and marked in the broad expanse of desert landscape by dark tops of huge cottonwoods, and the light reflected from the whitewashed walls of adobe houses. The number and quality of the springs determine the size of the hamlet and sometimes the nature of its operations. Upon arrival we may find also ash and pepper trees, pecans, avocadoes, figs, pomegranates, apples and grapes, rows of magueys and hedges of tuna-bearing nopáls. Onions, garlics and